Promised Land Reviews

It's more middle of the road than transcendent, but Promised Land offers a quietly engaging and even-handed look at a controversial issue.

Full Review | Original Score: 3.5/5

Gus Van Sant's Promised Land is an engaging performance-driven drama that works more often than not.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5

... Van Sant's eye and sense of poetry no doubt elevate what's essentially an updated Frank Capra story ...

Full Review | Original Score: 87/100

Thee film-makers' sincerity so indisputable, that Promised Land never entirely spins off the rails. It's hard to swallow, but easy to digest.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5

Hydraulic fracturing might not be the most compelling subject for a movie, but it provides a topical backdrop for this engaging drama about ethics.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5

A flawed but watchable eco-drama - heavily indebted to a wittier anti-corporate movie, Local Hero, made 30 years ago.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5

The latest film from Gus Van Sant is a thought-provoking and emotionally engaging smalltown drama with a strong script and a terrific central performance from co-writer Matt Damon.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5

A compelling glimpse into a world of corporate chicanery where unscrupulous business giants casually toss decent chaps like Butler into the fray to take the, er, frack.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5

Northern Exposure with Jason Bourne. Which is a backhanded way of saying this is far from the challenging movie it promised to be.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5

Quietly powerful, this has a fine cast and yet it's very much Damon's movie, as he delivers his finest, most subtly nuanced performance yet and, remarkably, actually allows himself to look, ahem, older.

Full Review | Original Score: 3.5/5

An earnest, fundamentally likeable film which challenges us to question what we're told rather than calling us to arms.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5

Its quiet nature may give it longer legs over time, slipping its way into cable viewing, but it'll have to reach way beyond the typically urban Gus Van Sant audience to make the impact it wants.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5

...neither a firebrand nor a puppyish Oscar-chaser. It's becalmed, downright mellow at times.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5

As schematic as it is, "Promised Land" benefits from the tremendous appeal of its cast.

Full Review | Original Score: **1/2

Director Van Sant's heart doesn't appear to be quite in it.

Full Review

Gus Van Sant's fracking drama pits Matt Damon's energy executive against John Krasinski's eco-dreamboat in a battle for the minds of backwater farmers and the heart of Rosemarie DeWitt's moony schoolma'am.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5

The makers of Promised Land clearly object to fracking but attempt, not always successfully, to explore the issue without stacking the deck in favor of its viewpoint.

Full Review | Original Score: B

Relateable

Full Review | Original Score: 3.5/5

Touching and believable.

Full Review | Original Score: 8/10

While Damon and Krasinski have penned likable, real characters, the story surrounding them is only sporadically compelling.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5